The Plateau and Mount Royal

Old Montréal gets the visitors, but the city lives on the Plateau and in Mile End, neighbourhoods of low brick terraces whose flats are reached by external spiral staircases, a nineteenth-century solution to a tax on interior stairs that became the city's signature. This is where the bagels are, boiled in honey water and baked in wood-fired ovens by two rival bakeries that have run day and night for decades, and where the smoked meat is piled onto rye. Above it all rises Mount Royal, the hill the city is named after, laid out as a park by the designer of Central Park, with a lookout over the skyline and, on summer Sundays, an enormous informal drum circle at its foot.

What you actually see

• The spiral staircases - the external stairs that define Plateau streets.
• Mount Royal - the hill park, its lookout and the Sunday drum circle.
• Wood-fired bagels - the rival Mile End bakeries running around the clock.
• Smoked meat - the delicatessen tradition on the Main.

When to go

May to October is when the city is outdoors, with terraces open and festivals almost continuously through the summer; winter is long, cold and snowy, which the underground city partly answers. Autumn colour on Mount Royal in October is superb.

Honest expectations

Winter here is severe and the outdoor life that makes the city appealing simply stops. The famous bakeries and delicatessens have queues at peak hours. Parking is difficult and expensive across the Plateau, so use the metro. French is the working language and a little effort with it changes how you are received.

Nearby

Old Montréal and the port are downhill; the Jean-Talon market is north in Little Italy.